Proposed city budget holds line on taxes, looks to address neighborhood issues

The city's proposed 2014-15 budget holds the line on taxes while helping foster programs City Manager Jason Molino said will help improve the quality of life in Batavia.

The $16.6 million spending plan calls for a 3-cent decrease in city property taxes, lowering the rate from $9.30 per thousand to $9.27 per thousand.

At the same time, city spending will increase 4.4 percent, or $675,000 over 2013-14.

City Council President Brooks Hawley said he doesn't yet have a feel for how the rest of the council will respond to the proposed budget, but he's looking forward to the budget discussions, which begin with a budget presentation by city staff at tonight's meeting.

"We just received this budget on Friday, so I'm very excited to talk with other City Council members and see what they think," Hawley said. "I'm looking forward to the budget meetings and seeing where we go from there. Right now, this is just a starting point. We are excited, just by looking at the first couple of pages, that what council wanted, this budget lays out, such as neighborhood revitalization, addressing quality of life and keeping the tax rate down."

The budget proposal brings back the position of assistant city manager, which was eliminated years ago as a cost-saving measure.

Molino said it's needed now to help the city move forward on several projects that will mean lower costs for both the city and for residents.

One of the primary duties of the new assistant city manager will be to get the city participating in the National Flood Insurance Program.

Working out of a 600-page book of guidelines, it will be up to the new assistant city manager to implement plans and programs that will mitigate flood issues and help improve the city's flood insurance rating.

The city's rating is currently a Class 10 -- the highest rating because the city doesn't currently participate in NFIP -- and for each point the city can shave off the rating, the cost of flood insurance for property owners in the city will drop 5 percent.

The rating can improve by doing simple things such as ensuring certain kinds of public information be available to complicated matters like moving buildings. There are, in all, 18 different topics the city can study, and possibly address, to improve Batavia's flood insurance rating.

Currently, the average cost of flood insurance in the city is $900 annually, based on the price of the home.

"That's more than your average City of Batavia tax bill -- city property taxes for that property on a home that's assessed at $90,000," Molino said. "How do we combat that? If we can lower those premiums by 5, 10, 15, 20 percent through actions we can take through the community-rated service program, we're going to be able to provide relief to our residents."

Molino believes that high cost is one reason some residents won't invest more in their homes, or buy houses that are worthy of restoration if not for their location in a flood plane.

The new assistant city manager will also handle risk management for the city, which can help reduce the city's annual $2 million expenditure on various insurance policies.

The new position will pay in the range of $63,000 to $77,000 and whomever is hired will be required to move to the city if not already a city resident.

"When the position was eliminated several years ago it was because the city was in a finanical position that warranted making cuts, scaling back on services, which it did," Molino said. "I think that now when we're on more stable footing, we're in a position now where the council is looking to take on initiatives that are going to help progress the community forward. We're talking about quality-of-life initiatives, neighborhood initiatives. In order to provide these services, you've got to have staff to do it."

A big part of the city's focus the past couple of years has been the implementation of a strategic plan, which calls for neighborhood improvements, revitalizing commercial areas, converting brownfield locations into once-again useful and productive properties and addressing quality-of-life issues, such as abandoned homes and high-crime neighborhoods.

One of the biggest initiatives planned by the city for the spring and summer are what Molino calls "neighborhood sweeps."

The sweeps will involve closing down a neighborhood for two or three hours so nobody gets in or out and the police, parole and probation officers, along with code enforcement officers, will endeavor to contact every person in the neighborhood. Individuals who cause problems might be identified and dealt with appropriately under the law and residential units that don't meet code standards will receive notices and have deficiencies documented.

There will be no prior notice to neighborhoods subject to a sweep.

"It's a way of trying to do several things," Molino said. "One, working with the residents who might be able to provide information about what's going on in their neighborhood; combating some of the issues that we're seeing, some of the increased activity; addressing property maintenence and criminal activity, all in one shot. It's taking our resources and focusing on the areas that need that assistance."

City leaders from Buffalo met with local officials a month ago to discuss how that city has implemented a similar program.

"It's taking what they're doing (in Buffalo) and applying it in a way that's a better fit for our community," Molino said. "It's taking these nuisance areas and addressing quality-of-life complaints and trying to combat them, either working with the landlords to get these problem tenants out of the neighborhoods, or working with the residents to identify the problems in the neighborhood."

Over time, perhaps, those residents who are generally content to do more harm than good will find Batavia inhospitable enough that they will leave the city, if not Genesee County, Molino said.

"It's not a hostile position," Molino said. "I would say it's a position of being a nuisance to nuisance individuals. If it's people who are engaging in criminal activity, if it's people doing things they shouldn't be, we're going to be addressing those.

"Keep in mind, when you're addressing little issues like nuisance and quality-of-life issues, minor issues, if you address those with a hard-line approach, it's going to be a deterrent to undesirables who are in those neighborhoods," Molino added. "They're not going to want to be bothered with that and it's going to have them disperse elsewhere."

The program is designed to empower people to take their neighborhoods back so they're once again a safe place for children to play outside, Hawley said.

Chief Shawn Heubusch said he's hopeful the program will help the community address some of the kinds of criminal activity we've seen recently in the city, such as shots fired on State Street, shots fired on Jackson, and the recent armed robbery on Jackson.

"This will hopefully get us to a point where we can address some of those issues before they occur," Heubusch said. "It allows us to get into the neighborhoods and get a more personal look at things and get the neighbors comfortable with us and being more willing to contact us. Do I think it's going to solve everything? Absolutely not."

The proposed 2014-15 budget also takes a couple of small, but potentially significant steps, in the technology region.

Working with National Grid, the city is planning a recharging station for electric cars located somewhere Downtown. The recharging station will handle two cars at a time that can plug into the power grid for free.

The hope is the station will attract electric car drivers from the Thruway into Downtown for shopping and dining.

The annual cost to the city, even if the stations are used to capacity every day, would be no more than a few hundred dollars.

"It's a marginal cost to the municipality, but it's an attraction to get visitors Downtown," Molino said.

The budget also calls for a few Wi-Fi hotspots to be installed at Downtown locations, such as Jackson Square. The pilot project will help the city evaluate the need and benefits of providing wireless Internet connectivity to smartphone and tablet users.

One of the biggest expenditure hits the city has taken over the past several years is the skyrocketing cost of funding pensions through the state's retirement plan. Each year, the state sets what the city will have to pay into the fund. For the first time in five years, the city is being told to contribute less than the previous year.

Another important component of the city's plan for neighborhood improvement is trying to obtain title to vacant and abandoned homes, and working with nonprofit agencies to renovate the houses and turn them over to responsible owners who will reside in the homes they acquire.

There are currently as many of 50 such abandoned houses in the city.

The city will use $229,000 from equipment reserve funds for police, fire and DPW vehicles and machines.

On the reserve fund front, $50,000 is being set aside for an anticipated renovation, or replacement, of the police headquarters building. A consultant is currently evaluating the current station and the needs of the department.

The police budget is up 4.1 percent, or $158,505 for additional personnel costs.

The city plans on spending $7,500 on "a neighborhood video surveillance camera," but no word on where the camera might be installed.

Union contracts dictate raises for CSEA members of 2 percent and for police of 2.75 percent. Management employees will receive a 2.5-percent pay increase. The fire personnel contract is currently under negotiation.

The city's part-time parking enforcement/recycling officer and the part-time ordinance enforcement officer will be combined into a single, full-time job.

There is a proposed 9-cent increase in the city's water and sewer rate to $4.71 per thousand gallons. There is also a proposed $12 annual fee to fund capital projects to replace aging infrastructure.

The city will replace 1,950 feet of sewer line on Trumbull Parkway. The project includes sidewalk replacement, road restoration, and upgrades on water service and fire hydrants.

A grant request to reconstruct Summit Street was rejected by the state, so in the meantime, the city will resurface the street.

In all, more than $1 million will be spent on sidewalk and street repairs and replacements.

Photo: Jodie Freese prepares copies of the 2014-15 proposed city budget for distribution to members of council and other members of the community.

"The sweeps will involve closing down a neighborhood for a two or three hours so nobody gets in or out and the police, parole and probation officers, along with code enforcement officers will endeavor to contact every person in the neighborhood. "

If I am ever stopped from going to or leaving my house without there being an active crime site, I will be sure to sue.

"The sweeps will involve closing down a neighborhood for a two or three hours so nobody gets in or out and the police, parole and probation officers, along with code enforcement officers will endeavor to contact every person in the neighborhood. Individuals who cause problems might be identified and dealt with appropriately under the law and residential units that don't meet code standards will receive notices and have deficiencies documented."

Welcome to Nazi Germany.

The term Nazi is over used a lot in our world today, so most folks won't notice a Nazi takeover when they see it. Let me help you recognize it. It is in this quote above! Herd the farm animals into their pen to make sure they comply. I think the first street they should do this to is Naramore Dr., Then Richmond Ave.,

In America you are innocent until proven guilty. Unless you live on certain streets in the City of Batavia, there you are guilty until proven innocent.

One of the biggest initiatives planned by the city for the spring and summer are what Molino calls "neighborhood sweeps."

The sweeps will involve closing down a neighborhood for a two or three hours so nobody gets in or out and the police, parole and probation officers, along with code enforcement officers will endeavor to contact every person in the neighborhood. Individuals who cause problems might be identified and dealt with appropriately under the law and residential units that don't meet code standards will receive notices and have deficiencies documented.

I have never heard such total bull in my entire life!!!! Against the law if it's not It should be This is yet another way we can punish the poor. Lets cite the poor neighborhoods for code violations and not help them by offering a solution. Lets make them stay in there houses shut down there neighborhood What if they have to work!!!! What if they have things to do and people to take care of How is this even possible ?? They cant be serious ? If they are then we have a lot bigger problems then the few current incidents that have occurred in Batavia. Even if they proposed to do this to every neighborhood and not just the poor ones IT WILL STILL BE A VIOLATION!!!!! I really hope this a misquote or taken out of context somehow This truly shows how out of touch the lawmakers and shakers are with reality

Something tells me this is gonna be an even bigger fiasco than the garbage issue we dealt with last year. I am not commenting yet as I really don't believe that I actually read this. So until it sinks in fully.... I am gonna stay on the quiet side.

Seems to me the tax rate should go down by more then a few cents..Last budget we were charged for 2 months of trash service..To the tune of 200,000 dollars..We were promised our tax rates would go down more then this if we got out of the trash business..Now it looks like Malino feels we should add a new position to help him do his job by hiring an a asst manager ..

Why do we have an recycling officer?..What does this person do?..The city is out of the trash business.Part time is is all that is needed to write parking tickets..Sounds like Malino is trying to create another job..Is this what city council wants?..

We will now see if all these new faces on city council want to set up some kind of police state with these so called sweeps.Sound like a lawsuit..

Why should any tax dollars go to give out free electric to charge someone's electric car...They got their tax break when they bought the car in the first place...

This budget on the face of it seems like a free wheeling spending spree...Free WiFI free electric ,what else should the tax payer be expected to pay for Mr.Malino?Lets not forget some one to help you do you job in the form of a new position of Asst.Manger..

Sweeps were conducted in several select Buffalo neighborhoods a few years back, troubled neighborhoods like we have in State Street Area and South Jackson. The only ones actually arrested were those that had active warrants or parole violations.

They were very effective in knocking down crime for awhile in Buffalo.

Do I like the idea, not really however with the exception of one person that posted here on this thread, we could go back and find post concerning the crimes in those particular neighborhoods that suggest even worse in one way or another.

The biggest result in Buffalo wasn't the criminal arrest, it was the documentation of code violations by land lords that resulted in many dilapidated homes being raised and/or at least marginally improved.

You can't have your cake and eat it too, if you want to diminish the crime in these select communities the bad apples must fear the police, and the overwhelming majority of good people in those neighborhoods must trust the police. In Buffalo and other cities, that was exactly the result of sweep operations like this. The good people began to call the police and the bad apples moved elsewhere.

Just because they were effective doesn't mean they were right. The ends do not justify the means. Restricting citizens from free movement is violation of rights.

The Fifth Amendment.
No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia, when in actual service in time of War or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offence to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.

No person shall...be deprived of life, LIBERTY, or property, without due process of law.

So my liberty to travel to and from my house at my leisure cannot be deprived.

Ninth Amendment
The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.

To explain how this applies, the city cannot just create a law that allows their agents to shut down neighborhoods if it denies me of any other rights I have.

No government agent has the right to stop you in the street and question you or restrict your movement without cause. Arbitrary decisions to perform street sweeps are not cause.

"Working with National Grid, the city is planning a recharging station for electric cars located somewhere Downtown. The recharging station will handle two cars at a time that can plug into the power grid for free.
The hope is the station will attract electric car drivers from the Thruway into Downtown for shopping and dining.
The annual cost to the city, even if the stations are used to capacity every day, would be no more than a few hundred dollars."

What is the cost to build this station? That's not listed. Isn't the city still in debt? Shouldn't the entire debt be repaid before we spend money on frivolous eco items?

"The budget also calls for a few Wi-Fi hotspots to be installed at Downtown locations, such as Jackson Square. The pilot project will help the city evaluate the need and benefits of providing wireless Internet connectivity to smartphone and tablet users."

So that during the city sponsored concerts, you can use the city's free internet and ignore the band you came to see. Never mind that your smart phone has a data connection that you are paying for.

When public phones were put in, the users of said phones paid for the right to use it. Why can public internet be the same?

"On the reserve fund front, $50,000 is being set aside for an anticipated renovation, or replacement, of the police headquarters building. A consultant is currently evaluating the current station and the needs of the department."

How about just abolish the city cops and use the state and county cops that drive through the city all the time anyways?

Sweeps have been conducted in Cities in the US for decades, Just is our area, besides Buffalo they were held in Niagara Falls and Geneva

The immediate reaction by some as this is some sort of Gestapo tactic, that actually isn't what a Sweep of this nature is. It isn't so much about making arrest as it is flooding a neighborhood with not only Police, but state Federal and local authorities and making contact, not search and seizure with all citizenry and opening communication channels.

And you are wrong, Law Enforcement agencies as well as city can close off blocks and prevent ingress and egress at any time to support an ongoing operation, it happens all the time across the country and every challenge has failed.

I am encouraged that they contacted Buffalo in planning this, because in Buffalo it morphed into not just a law enforcement operation but a community project as well with volunteers, private business and local government . The way it was described in the statement from Molino, does not do justice to what the concept really is.

In Buffalo

Save Our Streets (SOS) Task Force: The SOS Task Force, led by the Mayor’s Division of Citizen Services (DCS), is a collaboration comprised of various City, County, State and Federal law enforcement and government agencies, as well as neighborhood advocacy groups and corporate partners.
Drug Bust – “Operation Clean Sweep”

The SOS Task Force empowers residents in the community and improves the quality of life in the City of Buffalo by cleaning up neighborhoods and ridding residential properties of drug activity. The most visible component of SOS is Operation Clean Sweep.

This innovative law enforcement program won Buffalo a Crown Community Award from American City and County magazine. Highlighting Buffalo’s Operation Clean Sweep, the magazine cited “leadership and creativity from local government officials, especially when budgets are already stretched.”

In 2012 the tax rate was 10.71...2013 trash is taken out of the budget for ten months.In the 2014 budget we the property tax payer should realize a full year of saving from not having trash pick up in the budget..The city said the cost of trash amounted to $1.71 per thousand.So it should now be $9.00 per thousand.In reality Molino is proposing an increase in the tax rate not a decrease of 3 cents. Niether Molino or Hawely or the city council shouldn't be trying to sell this budget as a decrease in the tax rate..This is a increase.

Mark: Of ALL of the people that regularly post here, your comments on this story shock me. From what I'm reading, they're saying, in essence, "We will close the neighborhood off, and then search for some law being broken."

To a 'free' citizenry, that's not how it works. Or, at least, that isn't how it's SUPPOSED to work. You don't stop drivers on the highway for no reason, and start looking for SOME violation of law. SUPPOSEDLY, the authorities should have a reasonable reason for stopping (and searching) you.

Shame on anyone who thinks it's OK for tactics like this being used. As someone else commented earlier, the ends do not justify the means.

NO UNWARRANTED SEARCH!! And no stopping peoples' free movement, in or out, of their neighborhood - without JUST cause. And looking to find a violation that MAY, or MAY NOT, exist is NOT a 'just cause'!

If they want to flood problem areas with police, fine. That's what people in the crime troubled areas wanted, more police .

But, to block off an area and prevent anyone from coming or going, for hours? No way. To tell somebody who is not even suspected of a crime they can not come and go as they want is not something we want to start around here. To me, this is a civil rights violation..

No free recharging station. If you bought the electric car, fine, but pay your own bill. Do not ask me to help you with your new toy. Let the Business Improvement District (BID) pay for it if they think it will bring in more people.

Same with WiFi. If business thinks it will help, let them pay for it. The equipment for this will cost us, and we will have to pay for upgrades in the future. This idea came up before and was voted down and I hope it is again.

The flood insurance problem is real. It makes buying or selling a home on the South side hard. Don't think so, talk with a realtor. Getting our flood insurance rates down is going to take a lot of work and we may need to hire another person, but not an Assistant Manager. We have one person now doing the job of the Asst. Manager and head of Public Works and have had no problem.

How about contracting the job to bring the flood insurance rates down out? Why hire a full time person?

Not picking on you Mark, but yeah this is what a lot of us said all along. It's all a scam to open the door to increased spending. Now your paying more in taxes and paying for trash pick-up on top of that. A bad deal all the way around.

"You don't stop drivers on the highway for no reason, and start looking for SOME violation of law."

Well, actually, they do stop drivers on roadways (highways, if you will) for no reason and look for some violation of the law. They're often called DWI checkpoints or just checkpoints. and they've been upheld by the courts as constitutional.

Not saying this "sweep" program is the same thing or not, just to the point that authorities do in fact at times stop every car that passes through a checkpoint.

Isn't this the council for whom the majority of the posters supported in the recent election? You were vocal in your belief that your best interest would be front and center. It took less than a month for that support to evaporate. Amazing.

Bea, this is the budget presented by the city manager's office, the council hasn't even taken this up in it's entirety as yet. What I see is people arguing the proposal, not the finalized budget and we certainly have not heard from the bulk of the council as yet.

I didn't see anyone turn on the council so far, in fact, Mr. Hawley specifically said that the council had not seen or debated the proposal at the time of this release.

1. In sweeps the police do not enter homes without warrants, rather they make contact with everyone by knocking on the door, that does not mean automatic entry into a home or for that matter a vehicle. THER ARE NO WARRENTLESS SEARCHES INVOLVED.

2. The exception would be homes with parolees living there, which does NOT require a warrant because by nature of the parole the parolee forfeits his right to warrantless search at the time of parole.

3. The sweeps go beyond law enforcement and includes aggressive code enforcement, which is something that almost everyone here has advocating in select neighborhoods.

What is obvious here is that no one here actually understands what Neighborhood Sweeps really are and that brief statement by Mr. Molino understated what the concept is greatly. The neighborhood sweeps that the city is planning on emulating (Buffalo's) has received praise from all over the nation and all political spectrums. It is about empowering neighborhoods, not Government or Police and involves much more than that. .What's more important, it works!.

Maybe in Buffalo, after years of not addressing the problem it grew to the point where drastic measures were needed. Batavia doesn't have out of control neighborhoods on such a level that we need a swarm of officials to seize the area for several hours to search for every violation they can find. The police and code enforcement know where the problem houses are. Last I knew the numbers were small enough that with a little coordinated effort there were plenty of resources available to handle them. Citizen reports along with an effective use of the Police (NET) Neighborhood Enforcement Team coordinating with the Drug Task force, Parole, Genesee County Sheriff, NY State Police, code enforcement etc. targeting these criminal individuals will keep the problem in check. I wonder what has changed in the 8 months since the 3 Lieutenants have been eliminated from the Police budget? I've tried to make contact with the Chief of Police to offer my help and he will not meet with me unless I get permission from the City Manager. Like you, the first I heard about this neighborhood sweep was when I read it in the media. Even if this plan was formed under good intentions the way it has been presented to council and the residents of Batavia causes more concerns then reassurance. However, I will thoroughly investigate this and will never support a plan that violates an individuals civil rights. I've requested this to be added to the January 27 council meeting agenda so I can discuss this publically with council.

Nice job of plagiarism, Alvin! That, for those who might be thinking he wrote that, is from the book "The Trauma of Terrorism: Sharing Knowledge and Shared Care..." by Yael Danieli. I really wish people would provide citations.

"Citizen reports along with an effective use of the Police (NET) Neighborhood Enforcement Team coordinating with the Drug Task force, Parole, Genesee County Sheriff, NY State Police, code enforcement etc. targeting these criminal individuals will keep the problem in check."

Is what the Buffalo Sweeps are except that in Buffalo obviously they use the Erie County Sheriffs, the Buffalo PD Mobile Response Unit [MRU] and have added the element of making contact with non suspect residence in an effort to garner intelligence.

I said in one of my prior post, the way Molino described it is not how it actually goes down. The (No one in and no one out) statement I think is what appears to be the where the rights issue came up, in Buffalo they simply divert traffic from the block as the operation goes forward, and was a truly poor choice of words by Mr Molino'

I can't imagine entering a home or vehicle of people other than parolee's without a warrant was ever in the cards An important element of what they do in Buffalo is outreach by all the other city departments with the goal of identifying elderly and handicapped individuals.

I know of the Buffalo sweeps because I have done some work for one of the volunteer organizations involved in the community empowerment phase of the program. If this was simply a police sweep, I would be against it as well.

The biggest and most promising result in Buffalo has been the dramatic increase in citizen reports and investigations opened and arrest made down the road because of those and the empowerment of law abiding residents in the targeted areas to get back involved in their neighborhood. If this is done in similar fashion to Buffalo, groups like BID will become a larger part and the Police a lesser part of program.

What it really is going to boil down too, is doing it right and following through after the patrol cars leave with community empowerment.

The bottom line is, the entire concept is going to have to be presented to the council before any action or judgment is made.

I agree with you on the key issue Geno, the way it was presented, especially to the residents of the city at large, misrepresents what the concept is by a country mile.

What causes crime?
Most folks will answer.. Drugs.
When there was crime during the 1920's or so, the people answered... Alcohol.
Selling Drugs in our current time is profitable, that's why criminals sell Drugs.(I have heard a profit figure of 17,000 %).
In older times selling Alcohol was profitable, that's why criminals sold it.
There has never been a drive by shooting at the Jack Daniels Distillery by any of their competitors, and there never will be.
If Drugs were decriminalized now as was Alcohol was then, crime would decrease significantly. Jail populations would decrease. Addicts would get the help they need.
Why is this simple solution ignored by everyone?